OT - XP upgrade

Arthur.S wrote on 8/17/2012, 2:24 AM

My Dad's XP SP3 system is starting to misbehave (Not too shabby after 10 years) I tried re-installing SP3, but it falls down with an "access denied" error. Made sure that Zone Alarm was switched off etc and tried again, but still get the same error. SP3 now has a few odd bits 'missing'. Emails won't print, user accounts is blank etc. That kind of stuff. So thinking he should upgrade to either Vista or 7. Any advice on this appreciated. Upgrade or full OS for instance? Upgrade should keep all of his programmes and files? Best place to buy?

Comments

ushere wrote on 8/17/2012, 3:21 AM

what the hell - dive right in and give him $40s worth of win 8 ;-)

Arthur.S wrote on 8/17/2012, 3:35 AM

Win 8 upgrade will only preserve personal files though.

ushere wrote on 8/17/2012, 4:58 AM

ah, sorry, forgot - but i'd still go that route. what's the problem reinstalling a few programs? i always like to start off a new os with a clean slate ;-)

Arthur.S wrote on 8/17/2012, 5:24 AM

8 is a bit of an unknown really Ush, the thought of looking drivers for instance is giving me a facial twitch! :-)

diverG wrote on 8/17/2012, 5:37 AM

"10 years old"
If you go for W7 or W8 check that motherboard is OK to take the new system and that the BIOS is cleared for W7 . After 10 years the MB mfg will not be updating to W8
Why not take off all the data, reformat and reinstall XP. ie start totally clean. Add zone alarm once you are up and running and all MS updates are through
W8 might be a step too far.
Best of luck G

Tim20 wrote on 8/17/2012, 6:05 AM

Vista is a resouce hog so if you upgrade skip to 7, but like was previously said the system may not handle it. You can go to microsoft and run a system check to see if the computer will accept 7.

Also there are several microsoft tools avaialable to backup all of your data to import into 7 from xp. It won't do program files but will save all of your email, photos, videos, etc. Keep in mind that 7 doesnt support Outlook and you will have to use the new Windows Live mail which is a free download.

ushere wrote on 8/17/2012, 7:19 AM

apologies again, didn't realise it was a ten year old pc. that said, try running the upgrade assistant for any os, incl 8. it'll certainly tell you whether or not it'll run the os you want.

i actually put win 8 on a pretty ancient acer p4 with 2gb and 80gb hd just to see if i could, and to have a look at 'metro'. it works pretty well ;-) but dear me, metro is such a bad attempt at trying to be all things to all people....

PeterDuke wrote on 8/17/2012, 7:35 AM

When you say "reinstalled SP3" I presume you mean just the Service Pack. A clean reinstall of Windows from scratch is the best medicine for an old (and not so old) computer.

Don't upgrade Windows unless you need some feature in the later version. If all you want to do is fix the wobblies, then reformat your C: drive and re-install. Then save an image of your system. Then install only the must-have applications and save another image. Then install nice to have stuff (and save the image). Then in 10 years time (or earlier) if Windows starts playing up, reinstall the appropriate image and everything will be sweet again with a minimum of fuss.

Of course, make a copy of your system before you do anything else so that if all else fails you can go back. A big danger is to forget to save some data from somewhere.

Then again if the misbehaviour is due to memory or other hardware fault, upgrading the O/S is not going to help. Just buy a new machine and be done with it,